The National Security Agency (NSA) is spying on hundreds of millions of users of Google and Yahoo services, according to a report yesterday in the Washington Post based on internal documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden

The US intelligence services allegedly eavesdropped on cardinals before they elected the new pope at last March’s conclave, the Italian weekly magazine Panorama claims. The Holy See says they are not aware of such activities

Bangladesh is set to suffer more from climate change by 2025 than any other country, warns a new report by risk analysts Maplecroft. According to the report, rising sea levels, severe storms and other extreme climate-related events will also threaten the future of Dhaka, the Bangladesh capital. Mumbai, Manila , Kolkata and Bangkok will have the same experience

Plastic litter is one of the most significant problems facing the world's marine environments. Yet in the absence of a coordinated global strategy, an estimated 20 million tons of plastic litter enter the ocean each year

Throughout the years, Lebanon’s demographics have experienced periodic influx. But particularly in the last two years, the demographic shift has been so overwhelming due to the flood of Syrian refugees in desperate need for shelter. The situation is highly charged, if not perilous, considering Lebanon’s unmanageable sectarian balances, let alone the direct involvement of Lebanese parties in the brutal Syrian war. If not treated with utter sensitivity and political wisdom, Lebanon’s vastly changing demographics will not bode well in a country of exceedingly fractious sectarian politics

All indications are that these talks, like their predecessors, are doomed to fail. The question is whether the Palestinians have the nerve to unmask the charade. If not, Israel will use the peace process as cover while its settlements devour yet more of the Palestinian state-in-waiting

The only parties which will benefit from the prolongation and protraction of the crisis and conflict in Syria are those powers – and their proxies – who are accustomed to meddling in the internal affairs of other countries through political propaganda, sanctions regime and military force

Sartre once remarked that the attempt to construct a philosophy that goes beyond Marxism simply recreates a pre-Marxist view that is no longer relevant to current understanding. In a recent issue of the London Review of Books (9-26-2013) I believe the philosopher Galen Strawson guilty of just such an attempt in his article "Real Naturalism."

It is undeniable that some of these reactionary attitudes to women and girls can be found among members of other parties. But it is only the RSS, which appointed Modi as the prime ministerial candidate of the BJP, that has the distinction of seeking to replace the legal and constitutional rights of women in India with the law of Manu (Manusmriti), which dictates that women shall be subordinate to men from the cradle to the grave

The fact that every third child of Gujarat is malnourished comes as no revelation. It cannot be for a state whose Chief Minister Narendra Modi, now Prime Ministerial Candidate of the main opposition party in the country, had infamously blamed the growing malnutrition in his state on ‘beauty conscious girls’ trying to maintain slim figures

It might become a prince ready for coronation to think that empowerment is doling out food or shelter to the poor. But it is a feudal conceit. If Rahul Gandhi is really sincere, he should get over his naiveté and think of attaining escape velocity for India to take itself off the caste orbit

Despite being heralded as the first time in history that U.S. lawmakers would hear directly from the survivors of a U.S. drone strike, only five elected officials chose to attend the congressional briefing that took place Tuesday

The new film Unmanned: America's Drone Wars should be required viewing in all schools and homes in the United States, including the home of the U.S. president who could not be bothered to meet with the child victims of his drones who spoke in Congress this week

The proxy warriors have used chemical weapons in north-eastern Syria near the border with Turkey on Tuesday, a Lebanese TV channel Al-Mayadeen reported. The chemical attack was reported by Kurdish defense forces. The Kurdish fighters are conducting military operations against the proxy warriors in the region

In India , that dubious measurement in terms of India 's GDP growth has now hit the buffers. Do people really believe India 's future lies in tying itself to a moribund system that has so patently failed in the West and can now only sustain itself by plundering other countries via war or ‘free trade' agreements, which have little if anything to do with free trade? At best, it shows a lack of imagination. At worst, it displays complete subservience to elite interests at home and abroad

The promise of economic fossil energy abundance is a mirage. Like a thirsty desert castaway, we chase that mirage even though it lures us to our doom. Dazzled by the prospects of a hundred years of cheap natural gas or oil independence, we embrace an energy policy of “all of the above” that is hardly distinguishable from having no energy policy at all. With every passing year the fossil fuel industry con-sumes a larger portion of global GDP, reducing society’s ability to fund an energy transition. And every year the environmental costs of continued fossil fuel reliance compound

Each year, 65 percent of untested GM grains are fed to 53 billion doomed land animals by an industry that consumes one-third of the planet’s land surface and is the No. 1 source of human-created greenhouse gases -- yet “environmentalists” serve meat at their eco-conferences and warn people like me to keep our “personal choices” to ourselves

Gradually, awareness that de-Zionization of the US and European foreign policy as well as the internal policies of the State of Israel has become a prerequisite for peace in the Middle East is steadily taking roots in Israeli and world public opinion and consciousness

American politicians want to know the future by spying on trusted friends. Out of darkness, they are searching for ennobling animosity, not in foes but in friends. But the enemies are within. not elsewhere who lie and deceive the American people

Jaseera and K C Sreekumar are not representing any private interest, however, the public right which they are articulating is unfit to the contemporary development models. My interaction with Sreekuamar gives a completely different approach towards coastal resources, including the schools and health facilities. They know what ought to be development; however, their perception does not satisfy capitalist economic interest. This conflict will continue since the whole society is confronting such conflicts, hence, Jaseera and Sreekuamar are really representing another side of our development democracy, which is politically right yet completely wrong for the political elite

When the 193-member General Assembly adopts a resolution next month censuring the illegal electronic surveillance of governments and world leaders by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), the U.N.’s highest policy-making body will spare the United States from public condemnation despite its culpability in widespread wiretapping. A draft resolution currently in limited circulation – a copy of which was obtained by IPS – criticises “the conduct of extra-territorial surveillance” and the “interception of communications in foreign jurisdictions”. But it refuses to single out the NSA or the United States, which stands accused of spying on foreign governments, including political leaders in Germany, France, Brazil, Spain and Mexico, among some 30 others

In Italy, the US intelligence agency NSA bugged 46 million phone calls in a month, said digital library host Cryptome. The report is the latest in the revelations that the NSA tapped hundreds of millions of phone lines across Europe

The serious threats which civilization is facing in the 21st century are well known. Nevertheless, it may be useful to list them and to examine how they are related to each other and to our growth-obsessed, war-addicted economic system

As large-scale military deployments wound down, the United States had simultaneously escalated its use of drones, cruise missiles, and Special Ops raids in an unprecedented number of countries. The war on terror had become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The question all Americans must ask themselves lingers painfully: How does a war like this ever end?

The United Nations Organization was created by the Colonial Powers; for the Colonial Powers; of the Colonial Powers, plus a few dozen of their nominally freed colonies on October 24, 1945. This past Thursday was its sixty-sixth birthday celebration, or United Nations Day

German policymakers are boasting of an improving economy while the number of households needing government support is on the rise but the number of those requiring welfare in Germany went up 3.3 percent to 343,000 at the end of 2012. The figures show an increase from 332,000 Germans on subsistence payments from 2011

Several banks (including HSBC, UBS and Credit Suisse) have recently paid billions of dollars in fines for their alleged role in Libor rate-fixing scandal, money laundering and other corrupt practices. The JPMorgan Chase has been associated with several trading scandals in the recent past and has agreed to pay $5.1 billion to settle claims that it sold bad mortgages to two government agencies of the US (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) ahead of the financial crisis. According to media reports, JPMorgan may end up paying as much as $13 billion to settle all the pending claims over its reckless trading and market manipulative practices. Should India give such banks a free run?

Recently Government of Pakistan promulgated two ordinances, where the first is in amendment of already existed Anti terrorism Act- 1997 and second is Pakistan Protection Ordinance under which Law Enforcement Agencies (Police, Military, Para Military, Frontier Cop, Pakistan Rangers & Frontier Constabulary) have received extra ordinary powers. The first ordinance has also a power to fire or order the firing as pre-emptive measure

Key members of the United Nations – including some of Washington’s closest allies – broke with a decade of tradition on Friday when they endorsed calls for greater transparency over drone civilian deaths. The European Union, the United Kingdom and Switzerland were joined by the Russian Federation and China in calling for greater openness from those carrying out drone strikes. Pakistan was particularly strident, insisting that there was ‘no implicit or explicit consent’ for US drone strikes on its territory, which it insists have a ‘disastrous humanitarian impact.’ In previous debates states had refused to support similar calls for greater transparency

If the president were to become the first world leader to block a big energy project on the grounds of its effects on climate, it might help dramatically reset the international negotiations that he allowed to go aground at Copenhagen in 2009 -- the biggest foreign policy failure of his first term. But that cascade of “ifs” depends on Obama showing that he can actually stand up to the oil industry. To an increasingly disillusioned environmental movement, Keystone looks like a last chance

In a single month in 2012, the US National Security Agency (NSA) intercepted some 60 million phone calls in Spain. This revelation has been made by Spanish daily The World. The daily cited leaked documents from Edward Snowden

Kurdish movement and Turkish leftists are joining together. A congress is now being held in Turkey to carry forward the unity. Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has declared the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) - an umbrella party encompassing the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and a number of leftist parties - as the inheritor of the “historical legacy of [my] revolutionary struggle.”

Yes, I know. Uri Avnery has achieved many great things as a journalist and a peace activist. He has probably done more to educate people around the world about the terrible situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, and for longer, than any other single human being. And, to boot, he's celebrating his 90 th birthday this week. So best wishes to him. Nonetheless, it is important to challenge the many fallacious claims Avnery makes to bolster the arguments in his latest article, dismissing the growing comparisons being made between Israel and apartheid South Africa

Andy’s was an unjust killing that requires justice. His favorite color was white, so there have been white balloons at the events and the parents have requested people where the angelic white at the Oct. 27 and 28 funerals. This story is likely to continue evolving for a while

Melting ice caps on Baffin Island have exposed evidence suggesting that average summertime temperatures in the Eastern Canadian Arctic are higher than they've been since the beginning of the last ice age 120,000 years ago

A regional European pattern in recent trends in extreme weather and their impacts has been discerned. Some of the extreme weather phenomena associated with climate change are increasing in frequency and intensity within Europe. In some cases the impacts of these changes have had a significant effect on societies and economies throughout Europe, although at very different scales in different regions

The U.N. climate panel concluded last month that carbon emissions should be capped at a trillion tons, a total the world is rapidly approaching. Now comes the hard part: How will we decide how the remaining emissions are apportioned?

Thousands of American citizens have marched on the National Mall in Washington, DC to protest covert NSA surveillance operations on the 12th anniversary of the Patriot Act. The organizers have presented Congress with a petition which has acquired over 580,000 signatures. The march was organized by the Stop Watching Us, a collective of 100 public advocacy groups

Villagers violently fought police over a plot of farmland in a village in China’s southern Yunnan province. Since Tuesday, police have been stationed on the outskirts of the tiny farming village of Guangji. The farmland has been used by the villagers in Guangji and the surrounding area to grow crops for centuries. But, the local government plans to construct a $3.6bn tourist attraction on the land - a glitzy recreation of an ancient Chinese city

Though Riverside has successfully reinvented itself before, it is now stuck. During the middle of the 19th century, it was a resort town, a place for the well-to-do of Philadelphia to mellow during the sultry months

Another child has been killed. Andy Lopez was playing with a toy on Oct. 22 near his home in a Latino community in Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, Northern California. A sheriff’s deputy pulled the trigger and hit the 13-year-old seven times, fearing that his toy assault rifle might be real. His partner, sitting next to him in the car, held his fire. That patience was a better approach. Who is responsible for this death?

American society is swiftly changing for the worst. We all can see this. It has a way to go yet, and can be stopped and reversed before the rightist momentum becomes uncontrollable. To accomplish this, a new progressive/left politics is absolutely necessary. The march of the right wing must be halted and pushed back. The march of the left (not the center right lesser evil) must commence. All else, in our view, is wishful thinking

For the new Indian urban middle class youth Narendra Modi not only promises to cater to almost all the crackpot desires that he or she craves for, but also shows him the way how to follow them without an iota of guilt. He injects a debauched sense of pride by successfully creating, marketing and selling a basketful of myths and symbols like all fascists do. The content of his vision does not matter to his audience as long as the symbols are visible large and clear in sequence. Sadly the pathological urge to escape from reality that is inducing the middle class youth of India to take the drugs Modi is administering on them will finally lead them to the ‘desolation row’

The author has in his possession a crucial document authored and circulated by veteran ideologue of the RSS, Mr. Nana Deshmukh on November 8, 1984. Interestingly, this document was published in the Hindi Weekly 'Pratipaksh' edited by Mr. George Fernandes (Defence Minister of India 1999-2004, and presently a great pal of BJP/RSS) in its edition of November 25, 1984 titled ‘Indira Congress-RSS collusion’

A web of falsehood has been woven around the instrument of accession between Indian Govt. & Maharaja of Kashmir to present it as a credible & genuine document before the international community & General public. However, continuous scholarly debates & archival materials have exposed such falsehoods

What do you call a country that acquires farm land to build a Formula 1 track for a sport that pollutes, furthering global warming; and also acquires farm land to build nuclear power plants, dams etc., claiming that ‘clean energy’ is an urgent necessity in the era of climate change? Forget climate change for a moment; what do you call a country that forcefully acquires land and livelihoods from poor farmers for opulence like Formula 1 racing? Schizophrenic

Leena Manimekalai’s White Van Stories, a documentary on enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka with never-seen-before footage, is set to be featured on Channel Four, UK . The special 12-minute cut will also be syndicated across United States and through CNN and ABC broadcasting networks and in Australia via the multilingual broadcaster - SBS

An operation with potentially "apocalyptic" consequences is expected to begin in a little over two weeks from now - "as early as November 8" - at Fukushima's damaged and sinking Reactor 4, when plant operator TEPCO will attempt to remove over 1300 spent fuel rods holding the radiation equivalent of 14,000 Hiroshima bombs from a spent fuel storage tank perched on the reactor's upper floor

A coalition of 70 investors have launched the first-ever coordinated effort to spur the world’s top fossil fuel companies to assess the financial risks that climate change poses to their business. The investors, collectively worth $3 trillion, sent letters to 45 fossil fuel companies predominantly across the US and Europe last month, requesting detailed responses before their annual shareholder meetings in early 2014

The very presence of caste in the Indian Muslim society within these above mentioned classes can’t be denied by looking at the practice of endogamy within caste, nature of social interaction and representation at religious, social and power places. Studies suggest that backward caste Muslims are highly under-represented in legislature . Empirically it can also be observed that at other institutions like executive, judiciary, and media etc. where backward caste Muslims are almost absent

Bangladesh is going through a great churning. As of now the most pressing question before everyone is how the process of elections to the next parliament would unfold itself.. Whether every political party would participate in it or not or the country is in for a period of further instability and political violence. Awami League led ruling dispensation and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) led opposition alliance seem to be at loggerheads at this juncture

The story of Fukushima should be on the front pages of every newspaper. Instead, it is rarely mentioned. The problems at Fukushima are unprecedented in human experience and involve a high risk of radiation events larger than any that the global community has ever experienced. It is going to take the best engineering minds in the world to solve these problems and to diminish their global impact

Saudi Arabia’s petulant refusal last week to take its place among non-voting members of the Security Council, an unprecedented step by any UN member, was intended to express the dictatorial monarchy’s displeasure with Washington’s refusal to bomb Syria after the use of chemical weapons in Damascus – but it also represented Saudi fears that Barack Obama might respond to Iranian overtures for better relations with the West

The warm waters of the Gulf look quiet from where I am sitting, but such tranquility hardly reflects the conflicts this region continues to generate. The euphoria of the so-called Arab Spring is long gone, but what remains is a region that is rich with resources and burdened with easily manipulated history that is in a state of reckless transition. No one can see what the future will look like, but the possibilities are ample, and possibly tragic

With the recommencement of nuclear talks between Iran and the six world powers, hopes have been revived that more than a decade of conflict and dispute between the two sides can finally come to an end and the concerns over the possible diversion of Iran’s nuclear activities toward an atomic weapon will be completely allayed

German chancellor Angela Merkel has called the US president Barack Obama over the German government's suspicions the US could have tapped her mobile phone. She demanded an explanation, and made clear to Obama that if the information proved trued it would be completely unacceptable and represent a grave breach of trust

When President Obama looks through a list of men, women, and children at a Tuesday terror meeting, and picks which ones to murder, and has them murdered, you can call it a war or not call it a war, but it begins to look to a lot of people like murder

Although the latest U.N. climate report significantly increases its projections for sea level rise this century, some scientists warn even those estimates are overly conservative. But one thing is certain: Predicting sea level rise far into the future is a very tricky

New evidence indicates that the USA has carried out unlawful killings in Pakistan through drone attacks, some of which could even amount to war crimes, Amnesty International said in a major new report released today. The report, “’Will I be next?’ US drone strikes in Pakistan”, is one of the most comprehensive studies to date of the US drone program from a human rights perspective

America 's worst enemies are not abroad but within its politics and governance. The US does not need to extend bogus Aid package to Pakistanis, they understand America is already on a financial cliff; if it shares any sense of global morality and humanity, it should immediately stop all acts of war including the drone attacks and withdraw its forces from Afghanistan . The present and future American generations could learn a lesson, how to reverse the course of contemporary history and to make friends, not enemies

The shocking spectacle of Siddharth Varadarajan, the Editor of The Hindu, being forced out of his post by a cabal of its owners is a brutal reminder to journalists all over the country that however fine a professional you may be you will always remain at the mercy of media proprietors

Cancelation of the passport wasn’t just an effort to prevent the whistleblower from getting to a country that might grant political asylum. It was also a declaration that the U.S. government can nullify the right to travel just as surely as it can nullify the right to privacy

Speak out and take action in defence of anti-racist Jewish Australian academics and indeed in defence of all anti-racist scholars and environmental activists threatened by foreshadowed Australian anti-boycott laws. Please tell everyone you can

Unlike Tolstoy's Pahom who plummeted to the ground and died of exhaustion, whenever Dick Cheney's heart murmurs he just gets a new defibrillator as if it were a lollipop. Reassembling ones heart countless times while the rest of us are told that healthcare and education is where the budget cuts need to be made is much worse than making a smacking sound while eating a ham and cheese sandwich in front of a starved Gypsy family

Many young teachers who began their training with high motivation and noble ideas are exhausted or almost burn out within a few years of job. Teaching job is getting more and more stressful working in schools pose a number of situations that are unique to education and the current climate of uncertainty and criticism further undermines the professionalism and confidence of many hard working teachers

Containment areas surrounding 12 of 23 groups of tanks overflowed, with one of them containing Strontium-90 as highly concentrated as 710 Becquerels per liter - 71 times higher than the level set by the company as safe for release. Tepco told Kyodo News that they "cannot rule out the possibility that contaminated water has reached the Pacific Ocean via drainage conduits near the clusters," and added that they are working to determine that amount of contaminated water and what possible radioactive substances were released

Theese statements are all held as comforting core beliefs across much of society today : Oil supply can keep growing for decades. Climate change is not that big a threat. Fossil-fuels count as assets at zero risk of being devalued by policy action on climate. Fracking shale is a sustainableroute to new mass prosperity in the US and beyond. Each one of these assertions is false, so I and others like me believe. Each one entails a belief system that threatens society with disaster of some kind

The scarcity principle, however, is just an assumption, and it appears to be a dangerous one. Maybe in the empty world of the 18th century classical economists, it was mostly harmless to assume that people have unlimited wants because the vast majority of people had so little. But now that we live in a full world where the global economy is bumping against ecosystem limits, it’s time for economists to stop assuming that everyone always wants more and start accepting that it’s not possible to have too much

As we confront catastrophic climate change and planetary game-changers such as the ever-widening implications of the Fukushima disaster, it is increasingly likely that humanity is already inhabiting hospice. As tempting as it may be to leap into the left brain and begin arguing that we are not inhabiting hospice and that the notion is absurd, it may actually be more useful to notice the potential benefits of imagining such a scenario

Straw could play an important role in the future energy mix for Germany. Up until now it has been underutilized as a biomass residue and waste material. These were the conclusions of a study conducted by the TLL (Thueringian regional institute for agriculture), the DBFZ (German biomass research center) and the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ)

France’s Le Monde published a report Monday based on documents leaked by Edward Snowden describing National Security Agency (NSA) spying operations directed against the French population and the French business and political leadership. Between December 2012 and January 2013, according to Le Monde, the NSA collected over 70 million French communications, which were then categorized either as “Drtbox” or “Whitebox.”

Three High Court justices rejected a petition filed by several Israelis who had requested a change in the registration in their identity cards. The plaintiffs in the registration case were asking that the Interior Ministry write “Israeli” instead of making the distinction between Jewish, Arab, or Druze in their nationality category. The crux of the matter is that the High Court fears that if Israeli citizens are allowed to be categorised in the state registry as Israeli instead of Jewish, Arab, or Druze then the Jewish character of the state will be jeopardised

Shimon Peres’ guilt-edged insecurity these days is far more important when it comes to the masking—and unmasking—of an abettor of racist Zionism. His complaint, like Portnoy's Complaint, is also emblematic of the times during which he has lived and his uncertainty as to whether he has squandered his life in an evil cause

What our leaders don’t get is the most basic, practical fact of our moment: war simply doesn’t work, not big, not micro -- not for Washington. A superpower at war in the distant reaches of this planet is no longer a superpower ascendant but one with problems. The U.S. military may be a destabilization machine. It may be a blowback machine. What it’s not is a policymaking or enforcement machine

It is not yet clear how the U.S. , Israel , and other world powers will respond to Iran 's proposal and exactly how they see advancing their imperialist interests in the region and toward Iran . However, it's important to understand that both the U.S. and Iran are confronted with their own set of major necessities, including the deep fissures and rapidly changing situation across the region from North Africa , through the Middle East , to Central Asia

The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Statoil, and the mining company Nordic Mining are collaborating on a research project that will map marine mineral resources along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The parties signed a one-year collaboration agreement at the end of November 2012

On the issue of reviewing/repealing AFSPA (Armed forces special powers act), many come together on one side to oppose any such change, even government and opposition political group both join each other. On the other end, another stakeholder army itself comes on board to oppose any such change

Companies are not finding one new Bakken play each year; nor are they finding three new Barnett Shale-sized plays each year. In fact, production of U.S. natural gas has been just about flat since the beginning of 2012. U.S. crude oil production continues to grow, outpacing most projections. But, the United States would have to more than double its output from here to supply all of the country's needs

The UN has encouraged countries to review their biofuel policies to ensure they do not conflict with food security issues. If biofuels, often seen as a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels, are to be used responsibly, then they must be developed in line with the “progressive realization of the right to adequate food for all”

A new report by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), a U.K. based think tank, identifies Kenya as one of 11 countries most at risk for disaster-induced poverty. The report, entitled “The geography of poverty, disasters and climate extremes in 2030”, warns that the international community has yet to properly address the threats disasters pose to the poorest parts of the world. The report includes locations where both poverty and natural disasters will likely be concentrated in 2030; and in many instances, these locations overlap

This week marks the two-year anniversary of the Western-backed assassination of one of Africa’s greatest leaders: Libya’s former president, Muammar Gaddafi. His crime was Gaddafism: an ideology advocating for a strong, united Africa, which prioritized the interests of the indigenous masses over the interests of the foreign corporate bourgeoisie. Muammar Gaddafi inherited one of the poorest nations in Africa; however, by the time he was assassinated, Gaddafism had turned Libya into Africa's most prosperous nation

It is an all too familiar story in a world where corporate interests and the state virtually co-exist. Their inter-dependence poisons democratic ideals, leads to neglect of the most vulnerable, fuels inequality and continues the historic concentration of wealth in the hands of the few. The notion of trickle down economics, where the elite fill to overflowing, and the poor pick up their left overs, is,an economic model that has been thoroughly “disgraced and discredited across the world”. An alternative model then is needed, a model that meets the needs of the majority

As the Arctic 30 faced their 30th day of imprisonment on October 18 by Russian authorities, nearly 10,000 people took to the streets at more than 100 events in 36 countries to call for their immediate release. Meanwhile in Murmansk, the grounds of the Greenpeace office was broken into the day before the protests

Narendra Modi, would not have imagined that his exhortation that 'toilets first, temples later' at a Delhi conclave would not only generate a debate within the saffron fraternity but would also bring back focus on the pathetic situation of sanitation in his home state itself. And the ensuing discussion would also transcend to his controversial ideas about untouchability - the social-religious practice based on the logic of purity and pollution which has marginalised, terrorised and relegated a section of Indian society to a life marked by humiliation and indignity

Documents leaked by Edward Snowden and published in the Washington Post Wednesday show that NSA surveillance operations play a key role in the global campaign of assassinations being waged by the Obama administration

The fact that an insane killing spree is counter-productive, as pointed out to Obama by Malala, in case he hadn't heard all his own experts , is not enough to end the madness. Ultimately we must recognize the illegality of all killing and all war. In the meantime, prior to the U.N.'s debate on this on the 25th, we can add our names to the growing movement to ban weaponized drone

In reality, that government shutdown was partial and selective. Paychecks, for example, kept flowing to the very lawmakers who most fervently supported it, while the plush congressional gym with its heated pool, paddleball courts, and flat-screen televisions remained open. That’s because “essential” services continued, even as “nonessential” ones ceased. And it turned out that whether the services you cared about were essential or not was a matter of just who got to do the defining. In that distinction between what was necessary and what wasn’t, it was easy enough to spot the values of the people’s representatives. And what we saw was gut-wrenching. Stomach-churning

America has become in many ways a police state, albeit one where a kind of decency veil is left draped over the crude government machinery. How can a place which has elections and many of the trappings of a free society be a police state?

Working for reforms is not unimportant but capitalism cannot prevent the ruination of the biosphere. My sense is that climate activists who fail to acknowledge this basic truth — we might term them “capitalism deniers” — have no chance of reversing our slide toward the ecological apocalypse

Nearly 30 million people around the world are living as slaves, according to the Global Slavery Index 2013, a new index ranking 162 countries. Even, Iceland, Ireland and the UK are not slave-free. This is the first year of the GSI. The index says India has the highest number of people living in conditions of slavery, which is estimated to have between 13,300,000 and 14,700,000 people enslaved. China, Pakistan and Nigeria also have the highest numbers of people enslaved

The World Bank report is a way of stating discreetly what Castaing and other diplomats hoped to highlight more directly: that Israel is gradually whittling away the foundations on which the Palestinians can build an independent economic life and a viable state

What Bibi Netanyahu did not present was the truth resulting from his arrogance, the devastation to the people of Iran should that Red Line be crossed; what he did not say was the truth of his arrogance that he alone had the right to determine what is right and the rest of the world must abide by his demands; what he did not illustrate in his poster was the blood that would flow in the mid-East as the dogs of war wetted their appetites for the gold that would flow to their war chests as the bodies of the innocent gathered for the last judgment

David Bollier is among the foremost global thinkers and advocates for the commons. #NewMetrics channel co-curator Bill Baue recently had the following discussion with Bollier about the potential intersections between the commons movement and emerging concepts and practices in the corporate sustainability movement

The truth is not the issue here; the myth has been drilled in to the thinking of society. This phrase has double edged nature, which is something we need to register and combat. This phrase has tragically become a powerful concoction in the hands of communal forces

Private school teachers are displaying certain teaching behaviors that are leading to better learning outcomes, for example, providing children with regular feedback by correcting their homework regularly, displaying more impartial behavior towards students and showing more belief in the efficacy of their schools. Thus, question is, why are teachers in government schools, who are better trained, better qualified, equipped with better content knowledge, and better paid than private school teachers, not producing better learning outcomes for children?

Without image-based evidence, we might believe that smart bombs never miss or American soldiers don’t commit atrocities or that sweatshops are figments of some bleeding heart’s imagination. Without photojournalists, we’d also know a lot less about animal abuse, deforestation, corporate pollution, and much more. Without photographs and video to paint a more complete picture, it’d be a whole lot more difficult to inspire everyday people to embrace everyday activism. This, my friends, is the clout of the camera

The Washington Post on Tuesday published new revelations stemming from PowerPoint slides and documents leaked by former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden. In an article headlined “NSA collects millions of e-mail address books globally,” the Post wrote that “the National Security Agency is harvesting hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal e-mail and instant messaging accounts around the world, many of them belonging to Americans.”

The study found that carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels are overheating the oceans, turning them acidic and reducing the amount of oxygen in seawater. This is happening too fast for most marine species to adapt and ocean ecosystems around the world will collapse. By 2100, no corner of the oceans that cover 70 percent of the Earth’s surface will be untouched

Nourishing the Planet’s Catherine Ward spoke recently with Shiney Varghese, a senior policy analyst at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) who leads the organization’s work on global water policy. Ms. Varghese focuses on water availability, its impact on water and food security, and local solutions that emphasize equity, environmental justice, and sustainability

Food is treated as a private good in today's industrial food system, but it must be re-conceived as a common good in the transition toward a more sustainable food system that is fairer to food producers and consumers. If we were to treat food as a commons, it could be better produced and distributed by hybrid tri-centric governance systems implemented at the local level and compounded by market rules, public regulations, and collective actions. This change would have enormous ethical, legal, economic, and nutritional implications for the global food system

The election for mayor of New York City is less that a month away and Bill de Blasio's lead in the polls appears insurmountable (about a 50 point lead), Joe Lhota's attempts to curry favor with New Yorkers by red baiting de Blasio's progressive activism has back fired on the Republican as the Democrat's favorable rating has increased since the initial attack. Lhota has now taken a new tack-- to denounce de Blasio's plan to guarantee a living wage to New Yorkers who work at projects that are subsidized by the city

On Oct 12, tens of thousands of Yemenis took to the streets of Eden in the South of the country, mostly demanding secession from the north. The date is significant, for it marks the 1967 independence of South Yemen, ending several decades of British colonialism. But for nearly five decades since then, Yemen is yet to find political stability, a semblance of economic prosperity, and, most importantly, settle the question of its national identity

Assuming our politicians can fashion a short-term, medium-term and long-term way out of the current morass -- and I don't see that on any horizon -- is there any guarantee that anything will have been learned in the process, so that more time and attention can be devoted to the larger issues that require urgent solutions? I don't think so, but I would be happy to be proven wrong

Rs 5,600 crore appears to be a small amount in scam-ridden India where scams of Rs 40,000 crore are routine. But the scam at the National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL) in all probability may even surpass Rs 50,000 crore if one includes all the multiplier effect of the payment crisis. The market mayhem was triggered by the NSEL that suspended trading of all one-day contracts on July 31, 2013, without assigning a clear reason

The Gulf nations are planning to conduct "gay tests" for foreign tourists. It is claimed that the test will "recognise" gays and transgenders who will be then denied entry. This will be applicable in all the GCC or Gulf Cooperation Council countries that includes Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman. In all the GCC countries, homosexuality is outlawed

Rescuers have ended their search for the bodies of the migrants who died in the October 3 Lampedusa boat sinking. Only 155 of the 545 people, including Eritrean, Somalis, and Syrians aboard the vessel which sank in the Mediterranean survived the tragedy. Just 359 bodies have been recovered. The toll of deaths in the Mediterranean since October 3 will be added to the staggering figure of 25,000 who have died trying to enter “Fortress Europe” in the last two decades

The story is about the boat which took hundreds of Palestinians at the 13th of October escaping war in Syria to flee to safe areas. The boat was shot at by Libyan gun boats, and the boat drowned , and about 300 lost their lives. So, the story is not only about the civil war in Syria, but rather about the original sin of the western power: The state of Israel

In the latest assessment report of the IPCC we did not provide such an upper limit, but we allow the creative reader to construct it. The likely range of sea level rise in 2100 for the highest climate change scenario is 52 to 98 centimeters (20 to 38 inches.). However, the report notes that should sectors of the marine-based ice sheets of Antarctic collapse, sea level could rise by an additional several tenths of a meter during the 21st century. Thus, looking at the upper value of the likely range, you end up with an estimate for the upper limit between 1.2 meters and, say, 1.5 meters. That is the upper limit of global mean sea-level that coastal protection might need for the coming century

I suppose one could argue isolated circumstances prove exceptions to the more idealistic rule, but conversations with activists around the United States and Canada, in particular, have only supplemented my own experiences to the point where the hypothesis above demonstrates abject failure in practice among the grassroots, local and regional fare. Environmentalism truly is dead

If no action on global scale takes place in the next couple of years, global warming threatens to render useless the human race and its finest creations and inventions (everything from The Brothers Karamazov to the cardiac pacemaker). In a world that’s two to four degrees warmer than the current one, and considering the countless hardships that will come along with it, to write like Herman Melville or to compose like Richard Wagner will be as useful as speed cup stacking, or possessing a talent of squirting milk out of one’s eyes

As is so often the case with mass delusions, those caught up in fossil fuel mania have not bothered to think through the grim realities involved. While industry bigwigs may continue to remain on an energy high, the rest of us will not be so lucky. The accelerated production and combustion of fossil fuels can have only one outcome: a severely imperiled planet

The world is tired of war, and some big players are trying to change the game. Now the Russians have pulled the rabbit from John Kerry's hat with the the Assad Government's agreement to sign the Chemical Weapons Treaty and dispense with their chemical stores immediately, thereby saving Obama from a disastrous war, and perhaps giving the Assad regime an opportunity for international cooperation that would not be undermined by ruthless opposition forces. A remaining question is, "Where are those Chemical Weapons showing up here and there in Syria coming from?"

If we were to recognize that Hitler isn't coming back, and that we could resist him without war if he did, we might suddenly begin demanding the things that other nations have and the U.S. could easily afford: healthcare, education, a secure and adequate income, parental leave, vacation leave, retirement, public transit, sustainable energy, etc. Lockheed and Raytheon and Northrop Grumman would start making solar panels or start departing this world for the pages of history. In other words, we might shut down the other half of the government from the half that's shut down right now

A Washington, October 14 datelined RIA Novosti report said: “A US-funded laboratory in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, accused by a prominent Russian official [on October 14] of developing biological weapons, has been repeatedly touted by US officials as a key tool in guarding the region against dangerous infectious diseases

There is growing anxiety all around, within Bangladesh and beyond as politics are becoming increasingly violent, fuelled predominately by sharp disagreements between the ruling and opposition parties over the framework of polls-time government. The ruling Awami League-led 14-party alliance wants to hold the next general election under supervision of the present government as per the constitution. On the other hand, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led 18-party opposition alliance demands for arranging the polls under a non-party and neutral administration. Otherwise, they would not participate in the election. At the same time, the opposition threatened to foil the election if it is held under any party government

A team comprising 13 persons from different organizations across the country, convened by the Centre for Peace Studies, visited riot affected survivors from 8-10th of October 2013. Here are their observations (PDF)

A detailed analysis of the myths, which are very much part of the daily life of the vast majority of Indians, appear to reinforce traditional hierarchies, which, far from being ideal, are in fact promoting and glorifying an idealised form of behaviour for women which is actually regressive and backward-looking

The National Disaster Management Authority recently issued a warning that over eight lakh causalities may occur if an earthquake measuring 8 on the Richter scale occurs in the seismically-active Himalayan belt where Kashmir valley is located. Is there any earth quake mitigation programme being worked out or as usual our desi (local) disaster management will be executed i.e. managing disasters disastrously

Free Trade Agreements will enable US companies investing in Europe to bypass European courts and challenge EU governments at international tribunals whenever they find that laws in the area of public health, environmental or social protection interfere with their profits. EU companies investing abroad would have the same privilege in the US. This proposed agreement (and others like it around the world) is essentially a charter for the systematic destruction and dismantling of legislation that exists to protect the hard won rights of workers and ordinary people. With India and the EU, among others, also currently negotiating a free trade agreement, it all adds up to big companies trying to by-pass legislation that was implemented to safeguard the public’s rights

Climate crisis is threatening the Bay of Bengal, whose “low-lying littoral — including coastal regions of eastern India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia and Sumatra — is home to over half a billion people”, writes Sunil S. Amrith in The New York Times

Feeding a growing global population while also slowing or reversing global deforestation may only be possible if agricultural yields rise and/or per capita food consumption declines over the next century, finds a historic global food consumption and land use trends

After 12 years of war, some estimate 78% of Afghans have psychological disorders, the taxi driver says its more, says we Afghans can’t think right anymore, he shows us scars on his knees from the day he almost died, he sighs, ‘so many stories of pain… But who are we to say we’re sane? When we remain entrenched after 12 years of war? I dare you to come here and still say you want more?

Yotam Feldman’s documentary, released in August, is one of the most important exposés of the obscene rationale and execution of Israel’s hugely lucrative arms and security industries through the voices of some of its ex-military key operators: Amos Golan, Shimon Naveh, Leo Gleser, and Yoav Galant. Israel’s armament juggernaut currently turns over $7 billion p.a. and its phenomenal success is, as Feldman reveals, due to experience, that is, the testing of weaponry on the Palestinian population in the Israeli military ‘labs’ of Gaza and the West Bank

While the world looks away, the Israeli occupying government had intensified its Palestinian land expropriation. The Israeli terrorist army would declare a coveted piece of land as a military area, they evict its inhabitants, surround it with barbed wires, raze the land uprooting all trees, make the land barren, and eventually allow extremist squatters to move in first with mobile homes and later start building their colonies

More than two and a half years on, Israel’s purported neutrality in the Syrian conflict and the United State’s fanfare rhetoric urging a “regime change” in Damascus were abruptly cut short to unveil that the Israeli factor has been all throughout the conflict the main concern of both countries

Australia has an appalling secret genocide history but politically correct racist (PC racist) Australia steadfastly “looks the other way”. White Australia's past and present involvements in 30 genocidal atrocities are overwhelmingly not reported by holocaust-ignoring and genocide-ignoring Australian Mainstream media nor taught in Australia 's schools and universities. “The Cambridge History of Australia” comprehensively fails to mention the “Elephant in the room” of White Australia's appalling past and continuing involvements in horrendous genocide and holocaust atrocities

Equivalent shock for Kenyans as 9/11 was for Americans. Background of these two massacres are pathetically similar. Both were blowback on US genocidal foreign policy. Osama bin Laden in his 2002 Letter to Americans, included “attacks on Muslims in Somalia” in his list of reasons for the al Qaeda 9/11 attack. Synopsis, chronology of US genocide in Somalia given. Every American should consider his or her possible involvement

The Tea Party movement of right-wing anarchism, which has dissipated, but it still influential in this country is profoundly motivated by the disreputable Austrian School of Economics. Many of these so-called Tea Party Patriots may not even be aware of the fact, that their fatuous economic hocus pocus/daft theory, comes from Vienna, Austria

By now all conscious people have seen how American Tea Party Republicans, especially those in the House of Representatives and Senate, are widely seen as radical, unreasonable, mad, stupid, extreme, anarchists, delusional and worse. My view is that the best and most useful way to see these people is this: They are political terrorists

It is easy to cut trees away. But with changing climate and other factors, conditions for planting and growing trees is becoming less suitable. If trees could speak, definitely they will tell us more. This unexpected encounter with the Tree Walk team has made us look at trees in a new way…

The precautions India took paid off and Cyclone Phailin threat passed off without taking much human casualty. Odisha revenue and disaster management minister SN Patra confirmed that there were no casualties, though nine people were killed due to uprooting of trees in the strong winds before the cyclone struck.The weakened system was moving beyond Odisha towards the north-northwest with a speed of about 20km per hour, according to the Indian Meteorological Department

French public opinion is running strongly against Hollande; a poll published recently in the conservative daily newspaper Le Figaro showed about two-thirds of the French opposed to military action against Syria as well as Iran. Growing demands that the president grant Parliament a vote on the matter were made last month amidst considerable speculation that he would lose if he did. In the end he did not

Max Blumenthal's new book, Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel, is 400 pages of fascistic horrors, a dystopian vision of where the United States or most any other country could go and where Israel has gone

Nuclear energy is unnecessary, uninsurable, uneconomic, unevacuable and most importantly, unsafe. The fact that it continues to exist at all is a result of a ferocious lobby, enlisting the autocratic power of government, that will not admit that its product is unfit for use in the modern world. Let us not allow the lessons of Fukushima to be ignored

Obama’s rhetorical exercise in ‘peace talk’ at the United Nations General Assembly impressed few delegations and even fewer Americans: Far more eloquent are his five years of wars, military interventions, cyber-spying, drone murders, military coups and the merciless prosecution of patriotic truth tellers

There is the threat of the US defaulting on its debt for the first time in history. If the state’s debt limit is not increased one week from now, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew warns, the entire global economy could be in peril. The debt ceiling deadline is October 17, 2013. And, Jim Yong Kim, the World Bank president, has issued warning: The US is just “days away from a very dangerous moment” because of the borrowing crisis

Current centenary year of the Ghadar Party ,founded in America in March,1913 by Indians of Punjab origin with overwhelming participation of the Sikhs to level of 96-97 per cent has not remained confined to customary celebrations

Teaching in teacher training institutions be directed towards empowering prospective teachers to enable to use their experiences in actual work places for enhancing growth and development of young children. There is to be a planned amalgam of theory and practice in a way that these two constitute a continuum of experiences

Two students of The English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), both belonging to a minority community, were handed show cause notices, issued by the Proctor's office and signed by Deputy Proctor Sujata Mukhri, for expressing their opinion on Facebook about remarks made by a member of the administration at a students' general body meeting organised by the administration to select the electoral committee for the upcoming students' union election

Apparently Phailin was named by Thailand and it means sapphire in Thai. What nonsense. Some humans do desire the precious stone, but no one, I’d think, is desiring Phailin. India should rename this meaningless obfuscation and call attention to global warming immediately

Armed opposition groups in Syria killed at least 190 civilians and seized over 200 as hostages during a military offensive that began in rural Latakia governorate on August 4, 2013, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. At least 67 of the victims were executed or unlawfully killed in the operation around pro-government Alawite villages

Indictment of the Federal Government of the U.S. for the commission of international crimes and petition for orders mandating its proscription and dissolution as an international criminal conspiracy and criminal organization

After the seriatim farce of the Commowealth Heads of Government Meeting in Australia in 2011, the Commonwealth of Nations will gather next month in Sri Lanka to celebrate with a military, corrupt regime steeped in cronyism, conflict, 'structural genocide' and crimes the 'shared values' set down in the Commonwealth Charter which protects a total of sixteen core beliefs from democracy, human rights, separation of powers, rule of law and good governance to freedom of expression, tolerance, access to health, education, food and shelter in a civil society

The veterans of the antiwar movement are OUR troops. If you must fawn over someone, why not these brave individuals? Suggestion: Let’s reinvent this upcoming Veteran’s Day as a way to honor all the activists who fought before us and blazed a path

When a band of Vietnamese communists overran a garrison of French Far East Expeditionary Corps in Dien Bien Phu on May 1954, it created shockwaves across the world. It pricked the sensors of military minds in the West, even as it reinforced the thoughts of revolutionaries like Frantz Fanon and Che Guevara that successful guerrilla wars against colonial and neo-colonial forces can be waged. If the brains behind this historical victory were to be sought, it would be this diminutive person called Vo Nguyen Giap

We would like to share with you the disturbing news that many attempts are being made by unseen forces to break our strength and unity. Each day many bombs made locally are implanted in our villages to fuel and fire our age old community clashes, all of which had disappeared with the Anti-Nuclear Movement. The cases against us have not been removed in spite of the Supreme Court directive.We are in the midst of uncertainity as the lies about operation and production are being spread all over. Yet we are standing strong

There is no doubt that release of Bhagat Singh’s Jail Diary by Narendra Modi will be playing havoc with the legacy of Bhagat Singh and his comrades who stood against theocratic, communal, Casteist and pro-imperialist forces. The pre-Independence documents available in the RSS archives make it very clear that Hindutva camp, not only kept silence about Bhagat Singh and other revolutionaries, in fact, abhorred them as we will see here

This article attempts to comprehend the reconstitution of Buddhism by Dr. Ambedkar. As well as, the present paper endeavor to explore causes of conversion of Dr. Ambedkar with his followers into Buddhist faith

The need of the hour for the dragon is to embrace Confucian values in letter and spirit to have an environment of peace and tranquility, at least for Asia if not for itself. A harmonious Asia and its Utopian concept are possible provided China forsakes its bellicosity and wishful thinking of creating ‘Middle Kingdom'; hence putting an end to all apprehensions once and for all

The broadcasting of video footages in the mainstream media of burnt and rotten perishable food items in the warehouses of Consumerfed is not the regularly argued apocryphal cases of corruption to satisfy political vendettas, instead they atypically reflect on the plausible intransigent moral and ethical vacuousness seeping into the operation and purpose of this co-operative establishment

Over 20,600 barrels of oil fracked from the Bakken Shale has spilled from a Tesoro Logistics pipeline in Tioga, North Dakota in one of the biggest onshore oil spills in recent U.S. history. Though the spill occurred on September 29, the U.S. National Response Center - tasked with responding to chemical and oil spills - did not make the report available until October 8 due to the ongoing government shutdown

The World Bank Group (WBG) is aiding an Indonesian coal-based power plant, one of the largest coal-fired power plants in southeast Asia, despite its propagated policy of discouraging coal. This huge coal project has incited strong local opposition including a lawsuit and multiple protests by thousands of local residents resulting in violent clashes with project security and the military. There is still time for the World Bank to do the right thing and halt this dirty coal project as well as further WBG support of coal development more generally

Iran has rejected Washington’s preconditions for its participation in international deliberations on a “political solution” to the war in Syria—the so-called Geneva Two conference. The Obama administration, which excluded Iran from the first Geneva conference on Syria, has demanded that Iran sign on to its efforts to coerce the Syrian government of Bashir al-Assad into a “power-sharing” agreement with the Islamist-dominated, US-sponsored and -armed “rebels” as the price for admission to Geneva Two

The U.S. strategy is to isolate Iran, encircle Iran and dictate Iran to surrender its nuclear program. It wants to have a platform for aerial assaults in collaboration with Israel. Syria’s independence is vital to the security of Iran, not only its government, but its people and civilization. And I think that’s one of the big reasons why many of us oppose the U.S. war on Syria, because Syria could serve as a trampoline to eliminate any possible allies of Iran in the Middle East

If you’re itching to fight the growth of government, walking the talk means supporting the transition to a stabilized, steady state economy. The only right way to stabilize the size of government is to stabilize the size of Wall Street, the banks, and for that matter, Main Street

The pervasiveness of fragmentation is one reason why there is so little belief that the recently revived peace process is anything more than one more turn of the wheel, allowing Israel to proceed with its policies designed to take as much of what remains of Palestine as it wants so as to realize its own conception of Jewish self-determination. Just as Israel refuses to restrict the Jewish right of return, so it also refuses to delimit its boundaries

While the U.S. media has been obsessed with the in-fighting between Democrats and Republicans, as well as the recent government shutdown and the global/domestic ramifications of a possible government default, little attention has been paid to a looming disaster confronting working people: Obama is again threatening to cut “entitlement” programs, meaning Social Security and Medicare

There is much to learn from Shakespeare for our politicians. This is from the classic play King Lear. In one of the greatest scenes in world literature King Lear realizes the plight of the poor and the houseless in his kingdom when he himself is thrown out of the door by his daughters and is exposed to a pitiless storm and rain

We go back with our fingers crossed to our homes where children are still born deformed, where a young woman waits with anxiety and not expectant pleasure for the birth of her first born, where women cannot leave households where a physically challenged son or daughter needs special care all the time.. this is where we come from and where we are returning to. We hope and pray we will not have to keep on explaining the obvious .. and showered by insult upon injury

Development and empowerment of socially disadvantaged groups a commitment enshrined in the Constitution, and education is the most effective instrument of social empowerment. Schemes for the educational uplift of the SCs and STs have borne fruit but still the gap between the general population and SCs and STs are at unacceptable levels. Some minorities have fallen far behind the national average in education. It will be necessary to go to the root of the problem and examine the reasons for the decline so that remedial measures can be taken in future

Scientists from the University of Hawaii claim man-made global warming is now inevitable as the Earth is going to dangerously heat up over the next 50-years. Major cities including New York and London will fight to survive the rise in temperatures the likes of which humans have never experienced before. By 2043, 147 cities, more than half of those studied, will have shifted to a hotter temperature regime that is beyond historical records, says the study

It seems to be possible for nations, and the majority of their citizens, to commit the worst imaginable atrocities, including torture, murder and genocide, while feeling that what they are doing is both noble and good.. Some understanding of how this is possible can be gained by watching the 3-part BBC documentary, “The History of Racism”

And those who fight against the ‘system', any ‘system', need to understand that without unity no battle can be won, not those of liberation wars, as in Palestine, nor those fought from solitary confinements

On September 5, 2013, America's CIA and FBI made two illegal incursions into countries the United States of American has recently more than half destroyed with the genocidal civil wars it promoted, funded, managed and participated in with murderous air attacks. In Somalia, CIA FBI tried, apparently unsuccessfully, to assassinate a leader of the former Youth Wing of the Islamic Courts Union government a US backed warlord dominated government overthrew with US and foreign armies help. In Libya CIA FBI kidnapped Abu Anas al Libi, who has been indicted by grand jury for US embassy bombings in Africa

America has the power to not just ameliorate the conditions of its own poor; it has the technology to positively intervene to do the same in rest of the world. A very simple example, the amount of money pumped into the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for creating new machines for wars that may never happen, could easily be invested in finding cure for tuberculosis, a killer that has consumed more lives in the past decade than any conflict in the same period. If only the will is there, the means are at America’s disposal. But will this happen in an America that refuses to provide free universal healthcare for its own citizens?

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has publicly endorsed Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s attempt to reach an accommodation with Washington, including his recent diplomatic offensive at the UN General Assembly meeting in New York. Khamenei also issued a caution, however, suggesting Rouhani had overreached when he had taken a phone call from US President Obama and warning that Washington has a long record of duplicity and arrogance

Divestment from fossil fuels is an important way individuals, religious organizations, social organizations in general (e.g. societies, unions) , institutions (e.g. universities), superannuation funds, pension funds, companies and indeed local, state and federal governments can take concrete action against man-made climate change that is threatening the Biosphere and Humanity. We are all morally obliged to divest from companies involved in fossil fuel exploitation and which are hell-bent on destroying the planet for short-term private profit

The really, really bad part of all of this, after a few years (or months) of living on a reduced income and reduced pensions and benefits, there will be an uprising that the government will not be able to control. People will finally revolt and after years of being lied to by the government and watching our military thrust it's might into numerous foreign nations, while living from hand to mouth while watching the upper 1% get wealthier. Their rage will be uncontrollable. There will be bloodshed on the streets as the military and the militarized police try to annihilate the civilian population of America. They will either kill us all or throw down their weapons and join the people. This is what the scenario will be

Over 80% of the world's ice-free land is at risk of profound ecosystem transformation by 2100 that could threaten food and water security while the thawing of permafrost in Alaska damages roads, buildings, airport runways, and releases vast amounts of greenhouse gases

Scarcity and contamination of water is taking a toll on people, especially the poor around the world. The regions at risk under unabated global warming include the grasslands of Eastern India and the shrublands of the Tibetan Plateau

We are, each of us, purposefully chained by a leash in the Land of the Free™. But it is only those who stray from the cookie-cutter conformity who feel the leash’s harsh pull. Herman Wallace spent a lifetime tugging on that leash. We owe it to him and so many others to not only make the leash more visible but to also break the chains once and for all

Trying to rebound off the ropes, where it has been pummeled for the past several decades, The United Auto Workers (UAW) has launched an aggressive organizing campaign in the South, in line with an AFL-CIO resolution emphasizing organizing there, where unionization rates are weak across the board

Ending human violence will require us to stop terrorizing our children, giving violent individuals support and safe spaces in which to feel their suppressed fear consciously, and changing institutions, such as the legal system, so that we no longer use fear to try to 'modify' behavior

Greenpeace International Executive Director, Kumi Naidoo has written to President Vladimir Putin offering to travel to Moscow as early as possible to meet with the Russian President, in an effort to end the continued incarceration of 28 peaceful activists and two freelance journalists. On October 8th, the Regional Court of Murmansk rejected the bail application made by lawyers for two Greenpeace International activists and a freelance photographer. A further 27 cases requesting bail will be heard later this week

RSS specializes in double-speak and triple speak. In fact, the situation is so critical that it may be an understatement regarding RSS behavior. No other organization which claims to be committed to moral regeneration of India can compete with RSS in manufacturing lies. The current public manifestations of RSS for active participation in Indian politics, specially, forcing BJP to adopt Narendra Modi as prime ministerial candidate for 2014 elections is continuation of the same conspiratorial mind-set

A clear pathway for vocational students to enter higher education streams is the way to move forward. Framing of vocational qualification framework, introduction of vocational degrees and setting up of a Vocational University with polytechnics, community colleges, CPs and other VEPs as affiliated colleges are some of the recommendations which require further deliberation at National and State level

A sense of economic crisis and geopolitical tension pervades the proceedings of the summit. A dismal World Bank report released on Monday highlighted the region’s economic slowdown. Moreover, the current standoff over the US government shutdown threatens to escalate into a US government default on its debt, if the impasse is not resolved prior to the October 17 deadline for lifting the US debt ceiling

From Shutdown to Debt Showdown, we must embrace this time and our place to embark by taking a measurable step towards the appropriate collapse of all we know. October 17. Otherwise, the one Mother Nature delivers will defy all of our terms for what is reasonable, and there will be neither place nor time to rue the day we didn’t say, “Go Boehner.”

What is going on? Is the situation as serious as some say? Why? Who are these Republicans? Are they just lunatics, fools, and racists—or are they actually proceeding with a strategy and a goal in mind? And what about the Democrats—are they “finally standing up for reason”? Why do these disagreements seem so bitter—is it for real, is it for short-term advantage, or is it just fakery altogether? What is really being fought over—is it only about health care? What stakes, if any, do the masses of people—in the U.S. but, more important, all around the world—have in this conflict? And what challenge does this pose to those who really want to see a better world?

Everybody knows that this so-called government shutdown is bullshit. Everybody knows who the actors are and everybody knows why they are doing the things they are doing. The insane chatter on MSNBC,CNN and all the other networks is just crap to keep us on edge. The Government is not going to default on the 17th and everyone knows it. If the Government does default or gets close to defaulting, the President could use the 14th Amendment to issue an Executive Order to keep the government running and stop any default

Pity the poor American who wants to be a good citizen, wants to understand the world and his country’s role in it, wants to believe in the War on Terrorism, wants to believe that his government seeks to do good … What is he to make of all this? For about two years, his dear American government has been supporting the same anti-government side as the jihadists in the Syrian civil war; not total, all-out support, but enough military hardware, logistics support, intelligence information, international political, diplomatic and propaganda assistance (including the crucial alleged-chemical-weapons story), to keep the jihadists in the ball game

Netanyahu's speech at the UN General Assembly was a political impudence. He showed the world that he has not understood the signs of times. He seemed out of place with diplomacy and still caught up in aggressive rhetoric. He threatened Iran with an attack. If no other country wants to participate in a raid, Israel will do it alone, he said. President Obama should be forewarned and made clear that the U. S. would not help Israel in a war of aggression. The U. S. should not accept any longer to be jerked around by a politically deranged leader of a tiny country

There is a second kind of data company of which most people are unaware: high-tech outfits that simply help themselves to our information in order to allow U.S. government agencies to dig into our past and present. Some of this is legal, since most of us have signed away the rights to our own information on digital forms that few ever bother to read, but much of it is, to put the matter politely, questionable

Every year for a decade or more a million Ethiopians, 10 million and counting, have left, or fled, their homeland. While the television screens of the world have been flooded with images of North African migrants drowning off the Italian island of Lampedusa, the bones of tens of thousands of Ethiopian refugees lay in unmarked graves along Yemeni shores or at the bottom of the Indian Ocean or Red Sea

Those of us who believe that we should always have the right to reject our government's arguments for war should feel empowered. Now that it's been done, we cannot be told it's impossible to do it again ... and again, and again

Everything useful is shut down. Everything deadly is up and running. And a gang of truckers is on its way to DC to shut down the government. Make sense of any of this if you dare, and I'm willing to bet you've worn a Redskins shirt to the Holocaust museum

The Christian right needs only a spark to set it ablaze. Another catastrophic act of domestic terrorism, hyperinflation, a series of devastating droughts, floods, hurricanes or massive wildfires or another financial meltdown will be the trigger. Then what is left of our anemic open society will disintegrate. The rise of Christian fascism is aided by our complacency. The longer we fail to openly denounce and defy bankrupt liberalism, the longer we permit corporate power to plunder the nation and destroy the ecosystem, the longer we stand slack-jawed before the open gates of the city waiting meekly for the barbarians, the more we ensure their arrival

With 17 trillion dollars in budgetary deficit, approximately three millions Iraqi civilian killed by US led wars on terrorism in Iraq and almost one million civilians in Afghanistan and millions of wounded American and disabled veterans causality of the bogus wars against Islam and Muslims and surviving on mere food stamps; continued daily drone attacks on innocent Pakistani civilians, 18-25 war veterans daily committing suicides, insane politicians acting in egoistic behaviors, leaders without lead in the society and now the shutdown of the government point-out that more dreadful things are to come to America and it could soon be replaced by another morally and economically competent nation or group of small nations in global politics

The announcement of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, set for October 11, is sure to make big news. The prize remains the most prestigious in the world. But the award has fallen into an evasive pattern, ignoring the USA’s continuous “war on terror” and even giving it tacit support

We ought to have a bias toward energy supplies that cannot decline in the long run, namely renewables--and that cannot create environmental havoc with just one accident. Strangely, this is a surprisingly tough sell in a world that has already been sold on the idea that we have precise knowledge of our energy future--when, in reality, all we have are risks, many of which cannot be even be remotely quantified

Transcript of a speech delivered by Prof. Francis A. Boyle at the Illinois Disciples Foundation, Champaign, Illinois on October 18, 2001. This is a long, but very important and revealing analysis of the international legal maneuvering behind the military onslaught now being waged against the Afghan people by the Bush {now Obama} Government

I am not very fond of conspiracy theories. There was some ire and annoyance over the insistence by the usual conspiracy-theorizing lot that there was a ‘foreign hand' behind the bloodbath of Christian citizenry in Peshawar. But I am not trading in conspiracy theories for the time being

The Arab spring which Israel was worried from, turns to be a victory for Israel. Indeed the Arab picture of today is dim, and many think that the Palestinian cause is the major loser .Even this year's celebration of the October victory, has come as a sad occasion

For those political elements who are interested in upholding democracy, pluralism and the values of Indian Constitution, it is not adequate just to think of the menace of religious nationalism, just at the times of elections. It is a battle, which has to be fought at all the times, more at the times of elections surely, in the arena of culture, literature, art and every other aspect of the life of the Indian nation

In India currently election fever is gaining. A major issue which has come into fore is related to sanitation. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh has advocated the complete sanitation of the country to make it a developed country. The same thought has been voiced by Narendra Modi. He has emphasized the construction of toilets first than temple. He too has modern thinking about sanitation status of India and is devising a mechanism to make it a clean country

No amount of media and internet spin can alter the essential evidence for runaway climate change presented by the AR5 report, nor the consequences for future generations and nature. Even before publication of the AR5 a loud chorus of critics emerged all over the media, none of whom are raising any valid scientific points. As pointed out by Andy Pitman, those who deny the science will not indicate which evidence will convince them climate science and the IPCC are essentially correct. But for the rest of us, ignoring the evidence of AR5 would be imprudent in the extreme

On the level of the species “Homo sapiens”, once a species masters sources of energy – fire, electricity and nuclear fission – larger by orders of magnitude than its own physiological process, the species can hardly be expected to have the wisdom and degree of responsibility to control the effects of its inventions from getting out of hand

Some scientists are saying the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is overly conservative and fails to mention some of the most worrisome possible scenarios. The panel, they contend, is no longer fulfilling its mission of informing policy makers of the risks of global warming

With presidents and prime ministers failing to take meaningful action to avert a planetary-scale climate crisis, the mayors of cities and towns are increasingly stepping up to enact changes at the local level. “Cities are on the front lines of climate change,” Richard Register, founder and president of Ecocity Builders, an organization that pioneered ecological city design and planning, told IPS

The third night in Baghdad and there were eight explosions in different parts of the city. My cousin was a few meters away from where one of the explosions took place. She called to inform us while she was driving that she was fine and was checking on other family members if we heard from them, we told her that they were all safe and thankfully they were. Each family member was checking on their loved ones. People are living in fear from what each second could bring them but they still care and love each other even though they inhale air and fear daily

Jeremy Hammond's sentencing is set for Friday, November 15 at 10am at the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York. Free Jeremy Network is collecting letters of support to ask Judge Preska for leniency in sentencing. The deadline for the letter is Oct 15, 2013 . For more information, go to freejeremy.net

In our society the notion of a ‘good girl’, starts from objectifying her body such as in the name of rules forcing her not to have her hair cut, because as per established construct long hair signifies woman’s beauty. It becomes more dangerous when a victim does not have the realization of his/her victimhood; this is what exactly happens when girls of tender age by hearts the lessons embedded with the notions of patriarchy

The explosion of hydraulic fracturing in the last several years, according to a new report, is creating a previously 'unimaginable' situation in which hundreds of billions of gallons of the nation's fresh water supply are being annually transformed into unusable—sometimes radioactive—cancer-causing wastewater. According to the report, Fracking by the Numbers, produced by Environment America, the scale and severity of fracking’s myriad impacts betray all claims that natural gas is a "cleaner" or somehow less damaging alternative to other fossil fuels

Many questions remain. It appears that Miriam Carey was driving in unfamiliar territory. She was possibly lost. Maybe confused. Maybe distracted... any mother who has ever driven with a child in the back seat will understand that. Why was it necessary to shoot and kill her? Why was the car not stopped in a less deadly manner? Will the Press ever ask those questions?

Damascus: In Damascus and many other areas of Syria this weekend, citizens will celebrate the accomplishments of the October 6, 1973 - 19 day war jointly launched by Syrian and Egyptian armies to regain Arab land illegally occupied since 1967. Syrians will honor the 6,000 (Syrians) who died during battle

After delivering that ludicrous speech to the UN and displaying the childish cartoon of a bomb with a fuse to the world leaders in 2012, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once again made himself a laughing stock by parroting nonsensical, hallucinatory words about Iran’s nuclear program and its newly-elected President Hassan Rouhani in the 68th session of the UN General Assembly

Jen Marlowe's newest book, I Am Troy Davis, was published right around the second anniversary of Davis's September 2011 execution by the state of Georgia. Davis was killed by lethal injection despite considerable evidence suggesting that he was innocent. I recommend this book to anyone who cares about justice - whether you favor the death penalty or oppose it

It is the task of educational managers to develop practices that encourage knowledge sharing. It is a key aspect of quality improvement that people can share their knowledge and expertise. Proper teamwork cannot operate without it building up trust is key to knowledge sharing

Twenty eight Greenpeace activists and a freelance video journalist and a photographer were formally charged with piracy under Article 227 of the Russian Criminal Code on October 2nd and 3rd, 2013. The maximum sentence they might face is 15 years in a Russian jail. They are currently being held in a prison in the city of Murmansk in North West Russia while Greenpeace International lawyers have lodged formal appeals in the Murmansk court against their continued detention. The 28 Greenpeace activists and the two journalists, now known as the Arctic 30, protested against oil drilling in the Arctic on September 18, 2013 in Russia’s Pechora Sea

Heavy fighting was reported Thursday between two factions of the Western-backed Syrian rebels around the northwestern town of Azaz on the Turkish border. The battle underscores the deep-going crisis of the US-backed war against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in the wake of the Obama administration’s calling off of planned military strikes in the face of massive popular opposition. The violent clashes around Azaz have pitted fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an Al Qaeda-affiliated group that originated in Iraq, against those of the Northern Storm brigade, a locally-based outfit that had been affiliated to the US-supported Free Syrian Army (FSA)

The Middle East and North African (MENA) countries are some of the destinations of choice for both men and women seeking work, women look for domestic work and child-care, whist employment in the construction industry, is the goal of the tens thousands of men from South East Asia living in stifling poverty. In the MENA states, labour laws need to be introduced, and where they exist need to be enforced

The Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA) between the US and EU intends to create the world's largest free trade area, 'protect' investment and remove ‘unnecessary regulatory barriers’. Corporate interests are driving the agenda, with the public having been sidelined. Unaccountable, pro-free-trade bureaucrats from both sides of the Atlantic are facilitating the strategy

American author and political commentator Paul Gottinger believes that the United States has become stunningly isolated after it failed to build up international support for attacking Syria, and now the global public overwhelmingly oppose his hawkish rhetoric against Syria, even in such countries as France and the UK

Of late, some new players have entered the arena of the so-called Communal Violence -- aka "Ethnic Cleansing", "Sectarian Conflict", "Religious Conflict", "Hindu-Muslim Violence" and "Muslim-Non-Muslim Conflict" -- monks and clerics in Myanmar, Pakistan and elsewhere. Then again, the case of Bangladesh is quite different

The US is on the brink of defaulting on government debt but unreported by Mainstream media is that the US is about to default on and massively expand its Carbon Debt. The world has a terminal greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution budget (global Carbon Credit) that must not be exceeded if we are to avoid a catastrophic 2C temperature rise. Unfortunately, the US, Australia and Canada have effectively used up their “fair shares” of this budget, are now stealing the Carbon Credit of other countries and are threatening the world with climate catastrophe

There is a need of regulation or some kind of monitoring by developing regulatory mechanism to focus on low quality of private unaided schools serving in the country. The need of regulation becomes all the more important after the implementation of Right to Education Act (RTE), 2009. Care needs to be taken that these regulations should be both for government as well as for private schools

The latest audit by an international team of marine scientists at the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) found that the world's oceans and marine life are facing an unprecedented threat by combination of industrial pollution, human-driven global warming and climate change, and continued and rampant overfishing. According to the report the degradation of the ocean ecosystem means that its role as Earth’s ‘buffer’ is being seriously compromised. As a result, the authors of the report call for "urgent remedies" because the "rate, speed, and impacts of change in the global ocean are greater, faster, and more imminent than previously thought."

After close to 42 years in solitary confinement, Herman Wallace is free. Wallace is dying of liver cancer, with days if not hours to live at the time of this writing. In a stunning legal ruling, Judge Brian A. Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana ordered Wallace’s release by overturning his 1974 murder conviction. As he lies dying, Herman Wallace knows that after a lifetime of enduring the torture of solitary confinement for a crime he did not commit, he is now a free man

If we are not first heartbroken by what is happening to our planet, the earth community, the people we love, and ourselves, all other forms of preparation for our daunting future are quite simply, incidental. The collapse of industrial civilization will result in unimaginable loss of life, and those who survive will either become bigger people, or they will be emotionally and spiritually decimated. The heart, not the head, determines the outcome of that reality

What image of Palestinians would viewers, who have a smattering, or if any, knowledge of the Palestinian struggle, gain after seeing Dror Moreh’s documentary, The Gatekeepers? The word ‘terrorist’ and versions thereof - ‘terrorism’ ‘terror’ - occur over 40 times, and all, bar once, in reference to Palestinians implicitly justifying the raison d’etre for Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency)

Northern Ireland offers a real-life model of a just and equitable one-state solution because it accommodates ethno-national distinctions between citizens. In political science it's called "consociationalism."

This week, President Obama will attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Coordination (APEC) meeting in Bali, Indonesia where he is expected to announce his goal of having the Trans-Pacific Partnership signed into law by the end of 2013. Obama will host a meeting of the leaders of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) nations during the APEC conference

While Narendra Modi or his Parivar men can suffer from selective amnesia if it suits their convenience but the world at large very well remembers Patel as that leader of India who was instrumental in its unification and was aware about the hate politics practised by RSS and Hindu Mahasabha combine

As the race for parliament builds, the electorate would do well to consider from whose pockets certain protagonists crawl out of. Despite nationalistic rhetoric, you can be sure that certain party leaders are jockeying for position to do the bidding of their influential corporate cronies and backers at home and abroad. For them, the cynical manipulation of public sentiment is fine, but it just wouldn’t do to let the fate of the nation rest with the common folk, would it?

Education is one composite single variable, which has the capacity to transform many odds turning in favor of girls more specially so in the rural India. Therefore, an exclusive emphasis on girls’ education is necessary. Education for adolescent girls is constraint due to many factors; the most prominent of them is non-availability of infrastructure and schools

The sentencing of Lalu Yadav and Masood have exposed the moral edifice of most of the politicians.It has revealed that all is not well with the political culture of the country. This also shows quality deficit in the parliament like institutions, caused by the political parties

According to casualty figures released by UNAMI, a total of 979 Iraqis were killed and another 2,133 were wounded in acts of terrorism and violence in September. The number of civilians killed was 887 (including 127 civilian police), while the number of civilians injured was 1,957 (including 199 civilian police). A further 92 members of the Iraqi Security Forces were killed and 176 were injured. The death toll was lower than July's, which stood at 1,057, but still one of the highest in years. It brings the number killed this year to 5,740

"The scenes of murder, manslaughter and eating human hearts were shown on TV screens, but did not touch blind consciences," Moallem said. "There are innocent civilians whose heads are put on the grill just because they violate the extremist ideology and deviant views of Al-Qaeda. In Syria...there are murderers who dismember human bodies into pieces while still alive and send their limbs to their families, just because those citizens are defending a unified and secular Syria."

The Washington Post reports that the number of Syrians battling to overthrow the Syrian regime led by President Bashar al-Assad outstrips by a large margin the thousands of Arabs and other non-Syrian Muslims who have streamed into Syria over the past two years to join in the fight. The post also admits that most of these foreign mercenaries are affiliated to Al-Qaeda

Despite statements by officials in Washington, the actions of the US suggest that it is essentially contributing to the growth of Islamic radicalism, which it uses as a tried-and-true mechanism to undermine the position of any potential competitor. They are literally contriving to generate hotbeds of extremist, terrorist activities in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and many other countries, and the flames of all kinds of animosity are being kindled. They are calculating that the internal struggle will become extremely drawn out, exhausting the region and bleeding it dry, which will utterly debilitate any potential rivals or competitors

When I began my work, it was with the sole intention of making possible the debate we see occurring here in this body and in many other bodies around the world. We see brave executives remembering that if a public is prevented from knowing how they are being governed, the necessary result is that they are no longer self-governing. And we see the public reclaiming an equal seat at the table of government. The work of a generation is beginning here, with your hearings, and you have the full measure of my gratitude and support

Some 800,000 federal workers were sent home on unpaid leave Tuesday in the first US federal government shutdown in seventeen years. Social services were disrupted, most government regulation of corporations was halted, and national parks and monuments were closed

The Overview Effect, first described by author Frank White in 1987, is an experience that transforms astronauts’ perspective of the planet and mankind’s place upon it. Common features of the experience are a feeling of awe for the planet, a profound understanding of the interconnection of all life, and a renewed sense of responsibility for taking care of the environment. ‘Overview’ is a short film that explores this phenomenon through interviews with five astronauts who have experienced the Overview Effect

Here in early 21st century there are three dams about to break, and in each case a calamity is being postponed—though not, in these cases, by the heroic digits of fictitious Dutch children. A grasp of the status of these three delayed disasters, and what’s putting them off, can be helpful in navigating waters that now rise slowly, though soon perhaps in torrents

Now in this burgeoning new millennium our old republic has lost its intellectual and moral moorings, jolting from crisis to crisis. In Jefferson's time we were all about separating ourselves from our “Mother Country,” and we have been on a rampage ever since to define ourselves as “exceptional,” with a “manifest destiny.” And we have ransacked the planet to prove it! But, if we are to survive this century, we best learn how to reconnect—with ourselves, our global neighbors, Nature

Nazareth: The furore over the recent chemical weapons attack in Syria has overshadowed disturbing events to the south, as Egypt’s generals wage a quiet war of attrition against the Hamas leadership in Gaza. Hamas has found itself increasingly isolated, politically and geographically, since the Egyptian army ousted the country’s first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, in early July. Hamas is paying the price for its close ties to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood

Despite all that the Hosni Mubarak regime did to sustain its ties with Washington, and please Israel at the expense of the Palestinians; and despite what General al-Sisi is doing to regain Washington’s trust, there can be no breaking away from history – people’s history, cemented through blood and tears. Media clowns may spread rumors, and army generals may use many methods to humiliate and isolate Gaza, but Gaza will not kneel, nor will Palestinians ever cease perceiving Egyptians as their brethren

Iran seems successful in turning the Iraqi “strategic” agreement with the US into a tactical one, while it is succeeding in turning its own tactical accords with Iraq into a strategic bondage of the country. The burgeoning US-Iran rapprochement will only reinforce this trend to reinforce Iran hand in Iraq. Therefore, none seems more jubilant than Iraq by the latest indications of rapprochement between the United States and Iran and none seems more on alert to see it through to success

A scorched earth policy like this, is certainly not really a miraculous (or out of the ordinary sight), to be seen from the teabagging Republicans! It is just their manner of doing business, it seems, and undeniably will remain so without some kind of gargantuan intervention; that is, divine or otherwise (or so it would seem). A divine-like shock to the system that can sock some rudimentary sense into these “people”/cretins — and with undue speed!

As Narendra Modi has been picked up from the local stage and placed on the national stage, so is the violence of Gujarat 2002 on the way to becoming a national phenomenon: with Muzaffarnagar being the first successful export. I do not particularly care if someone throws “conspiracy theory” at me. We have here too many damn coincidences to swallow

The nearly ubiquitous belief of our elected officials is that addressing the climate crisis must come second to ensuring economic growth. This is wrongheaded—both because it underestimates the severity of the climate crisis, and because it presupposes that the old economic "normal" of robust growth can be revived. It can’t. In fact, we have entered an era of “new normals”—not only in our economy, but in our energy and climate systems, as well. The implications are profound

Once the economy is constrained in aggregate scale to stay within the limits imposed by the ecosystem, we could then fine-tune its allocative efficiency by internalizing remaining external costs into market prices. But it is critical to understand that even a perfectly efficient economy with optimal pricing can grow too big for the finite ecosystem to sustain, and once it is too big then improving allocative efficiency within the too-big economy is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic

The historical concept of the commons is a concept of property rights. If we historicize the contemporary debate about the commons and bring the historical concept of the commons into play, we must take that into account. Yet we must consider whether the question of property rights is even the central issue if we seek to solve global problems, and if so, how common-property rights can be fleshed out today

Thinking of an actual household as a small economy can be a helpful exercise. I have made or been a party to many decisions in an attempt to run my household as a steady state. For example, my wife and I decided to have a one-child family. We also decided to live in a cohousing community founded on sustainability values. In the spirit of drilling down to the smallest scale possible, I want to describe my recent experiment with one “sector” of my household economy: the laundry

Sutton Community Farm in London, England is the city’s largest arable community farm. From the seven-acre plot, London’s skyline can be seen shining through the distant haze, a constant reminder of the city this farm is attempting to feed

This large-scale, linear, industrial model of farming has replaced a local, cyclical, and ecological model. The new model has yielded undeniable short-term economic success as measured by financial figures, but unlimited competition will never be sustainable. It’s amazing how running in place on a treadmill can lead us further and further astray

Our ideas and our political institutions adjust much too slowly to the realities of technology. A nuclear war today could destroy human civilization and much of the biosphere. But politicians continue to risk the future of the world by initiating potentially catastrophic wars

Will the U.S. still be meddling in Afghanistan 30 years from now? If history is any guide, the answer is yes. And if history is any guide, three decades from now most Americans will have only the haziest idea why

Perhaps it is time America relinquish its “unbreakable” support of the Zionist state so that justice can flourish in Palestine, so that Walls of H ate may fall before bridges of compassion and love, so that weapons of mass destruction can be removed from the face of the earth, so that peace may reign in the mid-East, so that brother and sister can live together throughout the world

American author Douglas Valentine says that the United States does not abide by any of its international obligations and its calls for war against Syria violate the international law and the UN Charter

I have tried many times to write about my experience at the closed Rafah border crossing with Egypt that has left thousands of people in Gaza stranded. Every time I start, a deep sigh comes over me. Shortly after I feel paralyzed, and finish by tearing apart my draft. I have never found it this difficult to write about a personal experience. No words can capture all the suffering and pain our people in Gaza deal with collectively under this suffocating, inhumane Israeli-Egyptian siege

Once upon a time, there was a very evil class of humans that lived in a massive luxury castle on a hill surrounded by fields of (GM) crops. These humans regularly kidnapped, tortured, and murdered those who lived beyond the castle gates -- gates diligently guarded by ever-evolving legions of fire-breathing dragons

Silence defines Kashmir. It is this silence that Ajay Raina and Pankaj Rishi Kumar are countering through a painstakingly curated film festival entitled ‘Kashmir Before Our Eyes', which they have been travelling with across the country over the past few months. Organised by FD Zone Mumbai, the festival is composed of feature films, documentaries, short films and plenty of discussion

As a matter of fact the efforts of Mr. Shinde are coming too late. Years ago when the citizens inquiries, the tribunals, the dharnas brought forward the plight of Muslim youth in the wake of acts of terror, such a letter should have been issued. Not only that there is a need to train the police to overcome its biased behavior against religious minorities and other weaker sections of society. Mr. Shinde must take the process forward and call the convention of the top police officers and discuss the roots of terrorism, they should be made to understand the plight of marginalized people, and they should be made to go through the reports of these tribunals

If the intent of the current educational reforms is to provide high quality education, then an attempt must be made to address the present shortcomings in the practice of school inspection. These should include, monitoring the conduct of school inspection and the quality of its reports